In sharp contrast to June last year, the number of people in containment zones (CZ) in slums is lesser than those living in sealed buildings. While it remains mainly on paper, the numbers show how new cases are spread out rather than concentrated in one area. There are 66,000 people living under CZs in slums and 3.73 lakh people residing in sealed buildings.

In June 2020, amid rising COVID-19 cases in slums, the fight concentrated on cleaning and sanitising common toilets and chawls and COVID care centres were full of quarantined patients. Eventually, the BMC started sealing large slum pockets. In the last week of June, more than half the city’s population, 61.7 lakh people, were staying inside areas with almost no activity. There were 726 CZs in slums with 10,900 households and 47.1 lakh people residing inside. Bhandup, Mankhurd, Govandi and Kurla had a high number of CZs. At the same time, there were 5,831 sealed buildings with 14.6 lakh people. Even though cases started reducing, the BMC did not open the slums, at least on paper, as it was easy to curb activities in case of a sudden rise in cases.